THE
MINERAL LINNAEITE
- Chemistry: Co3S4, Cobalt Sulfide.
- Class: Sulfides
- Uses: As an important ore of cobalt and as mineral specimens.
Specimens
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LINNAEITE:
- Color is gray to white, usually with a tarnish if exposed to weathering.
- Luster is metallic.
- Transparency crystals are opaque.
- Crystal System is isometric.
- Crystal Habits include small octahedral crystals, usually well formed, and as granular masses in sulfide rocks.
- Cleavage is imperfect.
- Fracture is uneven.
- Hardness is 4.5 - 5.5
- Specific Gravity is approximately 4.8 (average for metallic minerals)
- Steak is black.
- Other Characteristics: A red to violet tarnish forms on weathered specimens.
- Associated Minerals include covellite, chalcocite bornite and chalcopyrite
- Notable Occurrences include Katanga, Zaire; Zambia; Maryland and California, USA and Seigen, Germany.
- Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, streak, associations, tarnish and color.
LINNAEITE specimen lnn-1
$ 27.00
$ 27.00
Dims: 0.94x0.87x0.76" (2.39x2.21x1.94cm)
Wt: 0.54oz (15.3g)
Gladhammar, Sweden
This is a complex specimen with many minerals. There are at least 4 good octahedral crystals of linnaeite, which are gray in color, with a metallic luster, and a slightly red irridescent tarnish. The other minerals include quartz, a brassy metallic sulfide which may be pyrite or chalcopyrite, a silvery metal which may be more linnaeite (or some other mineral, of course), some quartz, a red, dull weathering product (it looks like limonite but does not rub off easily), some black mineral, and a few patches that look like biotite but I suspect are something else.
lnn-1 ($ 27.00)
Gladhammar, Sweden